TV Ratings: NBA Finals Game 1 Dominates Wednesday Night, Dips From Last Season

LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers secured a comfortable win in game 1 of the 2020 NBA finals versus the Miami Heat, and unsurprisingly ABC rode the team’s success to an easy ratings win.

The game averaged a 2.1 rating among adults 18-49 and 5.1 million total viewers according to fast national numbers. While that was enough to win the night, it does represent a large decline from the broadcast figures that the opener of last season’s finals put up. Those figures are subject to significant upward adjustment once more accurate measurements come in, and the multiple COVID-19 and general TV viewership-related caveats still apply. Earlier on, Jimmy Kimmel’s countdown to the game delivered a 1.1 rating and 4.2 million total viewers.

Elsewhere on the night, impressively “The Masked Singer” managed to build on its season 4 premiere, ticking up to a 1.7 rating and 6.5 million total viewers. That represents a 10% jump in viewership from last week. Right afterwards, Ken Jeong’s “I Can See Your Voice” ticked down a fraction from its series debut, coming in at a 1.1 rating and 4.4 million pairs of eyeballs.

Over on the CW, the series finale of “The 100” failed to register much of a linear boost scoring, a 0.2 rating and 629,000 viewers, almost exactly on par with its season 7 average. A “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” replay came in at a 0.1 and just under 500,000.

On CBS, “Big Brother” scored a 1.0 rating and 4.2 million viewers, followed by the season 2 finale of “Love Island” with a 0.5 rating and just over 2 million viewers. That represents a dip of around 20% in both metrics from the penultimate episode. A “48 Hours” episode rounded things off with a 0.3 and just over 2 million viewers.

NBC aired back-to-back “Ellen’s Game of Games” replays, both of which delivered a 0.4 rating. A “Weakest Link” rerun scored a 0.3 and 1.9 million viewers.